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KEVIN Rudd's ministry loudly proclaims that he and Julia Gillard
will be the Government's engine room; continues to reward those who
installed him as leader; and sets up a high-powered kindergarten
for the precocious talent that is Labor's future.

The Rudd-Gillard duumvirate will personally drive the key,
high-profile areas of climate change and education. Rudd has
flagged he will take a big role in the former by having the new
cabinet portfolio of Climate Change serviced by a department
located within the Prime Minister's portfolio.

He has put a talented novice, Penny Wong, into the job,
indicating his guiding hand will be running things, at least in the
vital early stages that will include the December Bali
climate-change conference, and the negotiation of a domestic
emissions trading scheme.

Wong's appointment is a slap to Peter Garrett, although Rudd
intends to take them both to Bali. Garrett holds the title of
Environment minister but his portfolio doesn't include the
currently most important environmental issue. It's like having the
shell without the snail. This is a reflection of Rudd's prudence.
The climate change issue has an important interface with business;
Rudd is sending a reassuring signal: Wong would be a better
negotiator than Garrett.

The addition of education to Gillard's industrial relations
responsibilities gives her a huge job. The "education revolution"
is the incoming Government's core business. The theory is that once
the IR changes are in place, that area will phase back. Perhaps.
But the next few months will be hellish for Gillard and there are
serious dangers in overloading ministers, especially new ones.
Gillard also has all the additional work of being deputy.

Rudd, a former foreign affairs spokesman, will put his stamp on
foreign policy, as any PM does, but much more so. Incoming minister
Stephen Smith's extensive experience is largely confined to
domestic areas. Former spokesman Robert McClelland has probably
paid the price of his snafu over capital punishment, but he should
be happy as Attorney-General.

Kim Carr (Industry) and Joel Fitzgibbon (Defence), both pivotal
in Rudd's coup against Kim Beazley, carry their jobs into
government, despite speculation that they could be moved.

Rudd went against Labor tradition to choose the ministry
personally, without the factions having a say, although the result
suggests an eye to factional considerations.

He did not wield the axe radically: only six were sacked or
demoted to parliamentary secretaries. Nor did he take a chance on
the high-profile newcomers. He said they needed parliamentary
experience  but perhaps he did not fancy having to choose
between them.

So, among the dozen parliamentary secretaries there is a little
coterie of the best and the brightest  Maxine McKew (rewarded
for ousting one PM by being parliamentary secretary to his
successor), Mike Kelly, Gary Gray and the industrial twins, Greg
Combet and Bill Shorten. They are in the ministerial preschool and
what a jostling lot they are likely to be, as they wait for some of
their betters to fall over. Former NSW minister Bob Debus has gone
straight into the outer ministry on the basis of experience (and he
is 64, an age precluding too much waiting).

John Faulkner, Rudd's shadow and adviser in the campaign and a
minister in the former Labor government, becomes Special Minister
of State and Cabinet Secretary.

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